


Dancing on a Particle

by LadyBraken



Category: Chernobyl (TV 2019)
Genre: A little bit of beta but not too much, Fluff and Angst, M/M, Music, Sad Ending, my poor boys what have I done, rivers of tears
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-19
Updated: 2019-06-19
Packaged: 2020-05-14 17:35:10
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,485
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19278127
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LadyBraken/pseuds/LadyBraken
Summary: It was a strange thing to hear the tune echoing through the halls of Chernobyl. It shouldn’t have been. There was nothing creating beauty in this wasteland. Nothing left but machines and dead men. The same thing really.





	Dancing on a Particle

**Author's Note:**

> Hy! I want ot thankthe valoris discord for the help and support!

It was a strange thing to hear the tune echoing through the halls of Chernobyl. It shouldn’t have been. There was nothing creating beauty in this wasteland. Nothing left but machines and dead men. The same thing really. 

Boris Schesherbina could be very quiet when he wanted to. It would have surprised anyone who knew him these days, this tall wall of a man. Always charging, hitting, barking orders. But Boris had been at war, and he had learnt how to disappear. How to be unrecognisable in the mass - and wasn’t it what he had always done in the party? 

He walked through the corridors, the tune getting stronger as he went. 

Then, he found it. 

It was a small room. In bad shape, one of the wall half-crumbling, of maybe it was the wallpaper making the effet. At the other side of it, against a wall, he saw a large wooden piano. 

And sitting in front of the piano, was Legasov. Boris couldn't see his face, from where he was standing, but his shoulder seemed less tense, his legs fully on the floor and not jumping around from stress. No, his body was still, and his finger were moving -  _ dancing _ \- above the keys. A thin cloud of smoke was rising above his head with the tune he was playing. 

For a second, Boris thought about making his presence known. He didn’t, he wouldn’t. It was like Valery  _ belonged _ here, in the eerie, haunting tune his hands were creating, and not for the first time, Boris felt… like an outsider. 

Silently, slowly, he sat down, leaning against the concrete wall. He closed his eyes and listened. 

It was really beautiful. Simple, soft, like a lullaby, like the first snow of winter.

When he opened his eyes, Legasov was kneeling next to him, his finger on Boris’s pulse. His face full of anguish looked paler in the moonlight. 

“Are you alright? I turned and I saw you here, and you didn’t wake up…”

“I’m alright, I’m alright.” Boris said roughly, “I just fell asleep.”

Legasov smiled this small, depreciative smile he often had and that Boris hated. “It must have been very boring, then. The music.”

Boris waved him away, getting up to his feet. “Don’t be an idiot, Legasov. It was nice.”

Legasov didn’t smile, but there was a glimmer in his eyes that made Boris’s chest feel a little lighter.

 

\---

 

The car felt like a small trap. Legasov was looking through the window, his eyes fixed on the door. Boris wondered if he even blinked. 

It was easy to see the almost painful stress all over the scientist body. 

“Calm down, Legasov.” he said. 

The man turned his face towards him, frowning, his mouthshifting down in a way it so often did when he was biting his words back. 

“I’m sending these men to their death.” he blurted out. 

Boris took a deep breath.  _ Of course. _

“No, you are not.” He said. “You said what we needed. I gave the order. These men choose to go down there. Over all, your responsibility in this is quite small.” 

Valery shook his head, but he didn’t push the matter further. He turned his gaze back through the window. Boris knew he hadn’t convinced him because Valery’s guilt over the men runs deeper than the radioactive pollution. But he needed something to calm the man before he gave himself a heart attack over this. 

_ They needed him. _

It would be a lie to say that Boris wasn’t a man of words, but he certainly wasn’t a man of comforting ones, and he found himself at loss. 

He started humming. 

He didn’t know why he had done that, and it made him startle almost at the same time it made Valery. But Boris didn’t look at him, he kept his gaze safely outside of the car, and continued humming. 

“Thank you.” whispered Legasov.

 

\---

It was a strange thing, for Valery. To walk around, to work, and sometimes, when things were quiet, when it was the calm in the middle of the storm, to hear the humming. A few tentatives notes he knew too well, misplaced in the middle of the soldiers, against a nuclear plant, next to a map that looked more and more like a battle plan each day. Boris never sang, never finished the song. He only whispered one, two, three notes, tentatively, like they had escaped him somehow. 

It was Pikalov that had caught it first. Valery heard him humming it too, when his mind was elsewhere. But it wasn’t the same. Pikalov hummed because he was distracted, but Boris was never distracted. Boris hummed after a call from the higher authorities. After a bad news. After a death. 

 

\---

 

Valery didn’t count the number of cigarettes he had that evening. The sun has set but the warmth on his skin hadn’t fade away, and it scared him more than he dared to say. He had closed his window, even if he knew it didn’t change anything. 

He tried to grab his glass of vodka with a shaky hand, but only managed to spill it over his work and the floor. He swore and when cleaning the mess, but if was getting everywhere and his note were being drenched and he had  _ no time to rewrite them _ -

A hand grabbed his wrist. 

“Valery.”

Valery looked up only to meet Bori’s gaze. His eyes immediately went down again, ashamed. He couldn’t quite pinpoint of what exactly, maybe of his weakness, maybe of the mess, maybe of this whole catastrophe…

“Valery, when was the last time you took a break?” and  _ fuck _ , Valery could almost  _ hear _ the frown. 

“I- not long ago - I have work to do.” he stammered because the brave Valery that had risen in front of Gorbatchev a few weeks before was now hidden under deep layers of tiredness and radiations. Maybe he had never been real. He quickly tried to put order into his notes. 

Boris stepped forward and opened the window. 

And then, it came. 

Carried over by the wind with the radioactive particles and the laugher of the soldiers. 

The tune. 

The soldiers were signing the tune. 

“Want to see them?” 

He said it with that happy grin. Valery wanted to say no, that he had work to do, but he remembered the last time. The last time Boris had come to him with a big happy grin, Valery’s first name rolling off his tongue easily and Valery had put him down, again and again, hurting him without even wanting to. 

He couldn’t do it again. He didn’t want to do it again. Boris deserved better. 

Valery rose, and stumbled. He didn’t even notice he had lost his balance before Boris caught him by the forearm and helped him back on his feet. He guided him to the window, his large hand still on Valery’s arm, saying nothing

Valery was grateful for it. 

Down the building, the soldiers were drinking and, well, having what Valery guessed was the soldier version of a party. They were singing and dancing on  _ The _ tune. 

“They made it quite feasty.”

The voice made Valery look up. Boris was gazing outside, his face sculpted by the orange light of the floor lamps. He looked softer, here, leaning on the window. His eyes were less piercing, somehow. Valery wanted to touch him. To capture that moment of calm.

“Yes, I guess they wanted to dance on it.”

Boris was suddenly looking at him with an unreadable expression on his face. 

“Of course. Are you ok, Valery?”

“Y-yes, I’m a bit cold, that’s all.” 

Something softened at the corner of Boris’s eyes. His hand, which was still innocently laying on Valery’s forearm slid on his shoulder until he was draped over Valery. He paused a second, looking at the scientist, questioning him silently. But Valery suddenly felt so warm, so good, just tucked there. After a moment, Boris closed his arms around Valery’s shoulder and tucked the younger man’s head under his chin. 

“Better?” he whispered roughly. 

“Yes, much better.” He said. He would have expect his heart to beat faster, but it didn’t. It was almost natural, to be tucked in Boris’s arms. He would have worried about the KGB if he didn’t felt so safe, warm and fuzzy. His own tiredness was washing over him in a soft wave of tender melancholia, and he let himself rest against the strong chest of Boris Shcherbina. 

Almost imprecibly, they started to rock on the rhythm of the tune. Boris made them rock softly, right, left. “Do you never go and dance?” whispered Boris. 

“No. I never had the chance…” He breathed and they both knew why. Because there wasn’t the good person, because it was dangerous, because they could go to jail for grasping such a moment. 

Boris lowered his head on the side of Valery’, his chin on his shoulder. His thumbs were tracing circles on the scientist’s arms. Boris kissed Valery’s scarred cheek, breathing threw it. “Alright?” he asked.

“Alright.”

Softly, Boris pressed on Valera’s shoulder and made him turn around. Before Valery had the time to ask, Boris tucked him back against him, so that Valery’s head fitted perfectly on his shoulder, and Boris large hands went down to his hips. 

They started rocking again, in silence. 

Boris’s hand traveled along Valery’s spine in the soft brush of a caress, with an attention Valery wouldn’t have imagined the man possessed. 

“That’s what I like in music, you know?”

Boris hummed to encourage him to continue.

“One, two, one two… The order, the simplicity. Music, really, is just one important thing on which beauty land.”

He moved back a bit to look into Boris’s eyes. “Time.” he said, “It’s all just time.”

For a breath, Boris looked like he could cry. But then, one of his hand found its way on Valery’s cheek and this caress was more powerful than a kiss.

 

\----

 

Valery was sick. 

Boris had to look after the men, had to give orders, had to handle the safety of the zone but none of it mattered because  _ Valery was sick _ . Of course, he could blame his incapacity in doing his duty by the fact that Valery was the one calling the shots, the one knowing what the fuck they were doing here, and not because Boris absolutely refused to leave his side. 

Ulana, smart, brave, suicidal woman that she was, had taken upon herself to take over Valery’s work, but she wasn’t nearly as efficient. Truth be told, he didn’t fully trusted her. 

Boris sat near Valery’s bed, trying to ignore that this was just a further step Valery was taking without him towards the inevitable. His vest laid forgotten somewhere, his sleeves rolled up. The idea that Valery would leave him behind like this made him want to shake the man into health. He felt powerless.

He had to do something, so after having passed days barking uselessly at everyone, he took a sheet and started to soak Valery’s damp brow. His hair was stuck to his skin, and Boris brushed it out sometly. 

Valery was burning. 

Boris  put his hand on Valery’s head, hoping that he would feel the caress, hoping that he would hold on to it. 

Valery moaned a sweet, broken noise. He turned his head slightly, leaning into Boris’s hand. 

“Shh, you’re alright, Valera. You’ll get better, you’ll see.”

Boris didn’t know if he was telling it to himself or to Valery, really. He just needed to say it. Valery looked so fragile, laying in bed, his hair all messed up and damp, his face pale. Shivering, despite the warmth of the summer and the covers laid out over him. 

Without even thinking, Boris kicked his shoes and climbed on the bed. The image of Valery laying alone, lost in the middle of a bed simply didn’t sat well with him. He laid next to the sick man, wrapping himself on his side as if to protect him from everything in the world. 

He started humming. 

_ Time _ , he though,  _ please, just gave us time. _

 

\----

 

It had became a habit, to lay side by side on Valery’s bed. They never did anything,  _ really _ , but it did not felt like a loss. “I am not much of a sexual being, Borja. But I care all the same” had whispered Valery, and Boris had just smiled and kissed him. It was enough. It made this thing between them so much more, in a way. The way they knew without having the need to touch. 

Of course, they  _ did _ touch one another. caresses, soft, light, heavy, of all kind. But it wasn’t their body they tried to satisfy that way. They were just… getting in tune. 

The pun almost made Boris laugh. 

Truth was, Valery’s bed felt like home, like a cocoon in the middle of this giant mess. This was  _ their _ , this hotel bed that had seen so many other laying there before. It was like The Tune, everybody sung it, but only two of them knew what it meant. 

Valery’s lips were soft under his, and his skin was warm. His heart beating, his wits sharp, and he was always singing The Tune to lull Boris to sleep, when the other man thought he was going to explode under the pressure. 

It was the radiations, he said. They tired faster, but they had insomnia. They coughed more and more everyday, and the warmth didn’t seem to want to leave their skins. 

During the long, sleepless nights, they would just lay in each other arms, whispering things that didn’t matter and yet mattered the most, always a hand moving in an unknown ballet to caress somewhere, to smooth, to show that they  _ cared.  _ Even when he didn’t sing, Boris noticed, Valery was moving in the rhythm of The Tune. At first, Boris  thought that Valery had written The Tune to go with himself, but as day passed, he knew it was the other way around. Valery was pulling himself constantly with something reassuring, keeping the ghost of the music close to his heart so it wouldn’t break. A tic-tac time that went against the clock, that slowed to moments what would only be breaths.  

Everytime he could, Boris hummed. 

So Valery’s heart wouldn’t break. 

 

\---

They had taken him.

Boris had had to see the car go, powerless. To look at Valery, soft, brave Valery, disappear into the machine of the administration. He had had to go home. 

His wife had never cared much about him. They were friends, at best. Allies when it came to their children. Useful to each other in some ways. That was all. So when he had had to come back in the big house that didn’t feel like home, alone, so far and yet so close to the one he most wanted to protect, Boris felt like he was sinking. 

They had erased Valery’s name. Erased his existence,he was for all intent and purpose, a ghost walking the earth, a few blocks away from Boris. There was nothing left, they took everything. His clothes, his pens, his notes, his warmth. His stupid jokes, his cluciness, his thousands little ways to say  _ I love you _ without even uttering a word. 

Sometimes Boris turned around to hold him, Valera’s name on his lips, only to face the emptiness of the place where his friend should have been standing. 

Everytime his heart broke, and everytime he curled up on himself to lick his wounds and hummed softly in the night. 

He had caught Pikalov and some others, humming The Tune under their breath in the different meetings they had. 

Sometimes, it felt like Valery was still with them, in the air, dancing on a particle. 

 

\----

 

Valery was humming. 

He was humming alone, in his apartment since so long that his voice was almost raw with it. 

He had finished his tapes. All of them hidden, to be found only to by the ones they were meant to. A little wave to the KGB agent. 

Valery was humming when he put the chair in the right position. 

Valery was humming when he tried the rope and passed it around his head. 

Then, Valery’s voice was no more.

 

\----

 

Boris learnt of  _ it _ two days later. 

He said  _ it  _ and thought it as  _ it _ because he didn’t think he could bear the idea of what had happened.

His steps led him into Valery’s appartement. There was a guard there, easily dismissed. 

They had left things as they were, after a bit of searching. Boris eyes passed over the rope on the kitchen table without seeing it, taking in the last things Valery had seen in his days here. 

There was a sheet of music on the table. 

Boris took it, and sat heavily on the chair ( there was only one chair, and it was the one Valery must have sat on it all these days -- the one he had used to-)

There was something written on it, in the small, messy script Boris knew too well. 

 

_ You mattered more than time. _

 

Boris put his hand before his eyes as if it would stop the tears. Fuck he had loved his Valery, this little other human, fragile, hurt and doomed like him, and so lovely for all these things and much more. 

“I knew you would come, comrad Shcherbina. I am surprised it took you so long. Three day, I think? Five in total, of course, but you couldn’t know that.”

It was a small miracle Boris didn’t have his revolver. Charkov seemed to sense it, and didn’t move closer. 

There were guards at the door, but they both knew it wouldn't really matter. Only one of them had time to lose by being dead. 

Chakov held his hand, demanding. “I let you see it by respect of your devotion to the party and to the safety of the state. I must take it back, now.”

Boris looked at him, and for a moment, he thought about smashing Charkov’s head on the table. Strangle him with the rope like he had strangled Valery with isolation.

“Think of your children.” Chakov said simply, and it was the only thing that would have made Boris submit. They both knew it.  

Boris looked one last time at the seat, committing everything into his memory, trying to remember the smell, the color of the paper, the scratch of Valery’s pen on it, the little indentation in some of the letters. 

He got up, and gave Chakov the piece of Valery he had in his hand. 

When he left, he was whistling The Tune. 

 

\---

 

The tapes passed from hand to hand in the scientific community. Boris had never listened to them, he didn’t know if he could hear his voice talking about all this, all that had led to his death. Talking about radiation and powerplants, and never about the cool nights. Talking about the men sent on the roof, ignoring their smile as they were given a bottle of vodka. Talking about Chernobyl without mentioning  _ them _ . 

It didn’t matter, now. He was laying on his own bed, his breath ragged, the end near. The tic-toc insistent, time mocking him now that it had caught up with him, forcing him on its pace. 

A young man entered. 

_ A scientist _ .

Boris could see it immediately, from his oversized glasses to his long hands. The way he looked around, a bit lost, as if it was the first time he had looked up from his numbers. 

 

_ Tic. Toc.  _

 

“Are you Boris Shcherbina?” he asked. 

Boris nodded, not bothering to ask how the man came in. The young man sat on the visitors chair and took something out of his bag. He put it on the small table next to Boris. 

He explained how they had listened to Valery’s tapes. How they had taken all into account, except one. A strange one, no one had understood, until it fell into the hands of a man that had been at Chernobyl. A general, he didn’t say which one. The man told him to take the last tape to Boris, and to play it. 

 

_ Tic. Toc.  _

 

After that, the scientist pressed the button and left the room. 

The Tune rose in the air, soft, rough. Sang by a voice Boris knew too well and yet had forgotten a little. Boris breath forgot the dooming rhythm of the clock as Valery’s voice touched his ears. As Valery was brought back from the deads to change the Time. The breath became a moment, and the clock lost itself in the tempo. 

Boris breath slowed, but the roughness of the couch was forgotten. He inhaled, and sang two, or three notes. 

When the scientist came back into the room, Boris last breath was already getting lost in the air, entangling with The Tune. 

 

He was smiling. 


End file.
